Even if you may have been focused on completely different things than technology during the summer vacation that just passed, you certainly couldn’t avoid hearing (and maybe in the hammock you even took the time to read a little) about Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Microsoft 365 Copilot is a new service that will help you optimize your productivity and collaboration with Microsoft 365 apps (e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams). It will for example be able to provide personalized recommendations, tips and insights based on your usage patterns and preferences.

However, before you can enjoy the benefits of Microsoft 365 Copilot, you need to do some preparations to ensure a smooth, safe and successful launch. In this blog post, I’ll mention some basic steps you can take right now to be better prepared when it becomes available to you and your organization.

Note that these are only recommendations for some basic and relatively given measures. It should not be seen or used as the perfect checklist of everything that needs to be done to be ready to use Microsoft 365 Copilot. If you want to read the latest and official information on this topic, I refer you to Microsoft’s documentation. The purpose of this blog post is to make you aware that you can do quite a lot of useful things already now.

Its time to look over your house.

These recommended preparations are about creating a good overview and having basic access rights controls and security. Nothing really new but something that you should actually have done a long time ago.

One of the preparations you need to do before launching Microsoft 365 Copilot is to ensure that your security settings are appropriate and up-to-date. This is not something new or specific to Microsoft 365 Copilot, but rather a best practice that should already be in place. Microsoft 365 Copilot uses much of the same security mechanisms and policies as Microsoft Search in Microsoft 365, which means that you need to configure your permissions, roles, scopes and compliance settings according to your organization’s needs and preferences. By doing so (if you haven’t already done so), you can ensure that Microsoft 365 Copilot will only access and display the data that you want and that your data will be protected and encrypted at all times.

Secure your platform

• Identity: The starting point of a Zero Trust approach. Verify the identity with strong authentication, such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) or passwordless authentication²³.
• Device: Ensure that the device is healthy and compliant with your security policies, such as encryption, antivirus, firewall, etc. Use tools like Microsoft Endpoint Manager or Microsoft Defender for Endpoint to manage and monitor your devices².
• Application: Validate the health and integrity of the applications that access your data, such as Microsoft 365 apps or third-party apps. Use tools like Microsoft Cloud App Security (renamed to Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps) or Microsoft Defender for Identity to detect and prevent malicious or risky app behavior².
• Data: Apply the principle of least-privilege access to your data, such as SharePoint, Teams and OneDrive files. Use tools like Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory), Azure Information Protection, or Microsoft Purview Information Protection (formerly Microsoft Information Protection) to classify, label, and protect your data according to your sensitivity and compliance requirements².
• Network: Secure your network connections and traffic with encryption, segmentation, and threat detection. Use tools like Azure Firewall, Azure VPN Gateway, or Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to protect your network from unauthorized or malicious access².

Source: Conversation with Bing, 8/15/2023
(1) 4 ways Microsoft is delivering security for all in a Zero Trust world. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/blog/2021/03/02/4-ways-microsoft-is-delivering-security-for-all-in-a-zero-trust-world/.
(2) Securing identity with Zero Trust | Microsoft Learn. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/zero-trust/deploy/identity.
(3) Zero Trust Model – Modern Security Architecture | Microsoft Security. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/zero-trust.

Tips to think about when securing SharePoint

To secure your existing SharePoint environment, you may want to review the “global settings” and “site settings” for SharePoint in the Microsoft 365 admin center, and make sure they are configured according to your organization’s needs. You may also want to check the “access rights” for each site and its libraries and lists, and assign them to the appropriate users or groups.

It is a good idea to read more about upcoming security functionality in the article “Microsoft Syntex – SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM)“

For more details, you can visit the following links:

• Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot ¹
• SharePoint in the AI Era: Introducing Copilot in SharePoint & 10 more … ²
• Welcome to the new era of SharePoint and OneDrive in Microsoft 365 ³

Source: Conversation with Bing, 8/15/2023
(1) Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/privacy/microsoft-365-copilot.
(2) SharePoint in the AI Era: Introducing Copilot in SharePoint & 10 more …. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sharepoint-blog/sharepoint-in-the-ai-era-introducing-copilot-in-sharepoint-amp/ba-p/3806069.
(3) Welcome to the new era of SharePoint and OneDrive in Microsoft 365. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2023/05/02/welcome-to-the-new-era-of-sharepoint-and-onedrive-in-microsoft-365/.

Tips to think about when securing Microsoft Teams

To secure your existing Microsoft Teams environment, you may want to review the “Global Teams settings” and “Team settings” for Teams in the Microsoft Teams admin center, and make sure they are aligned with your organization’s policies and preferences. You may also want to check the “team properties” for each team, such as the team name, sensitivity, description, privacy, members, owners, and Private- and Shared Channels.

For more details, you can visit the following links:

• Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot ¹
• The next wave of Copilot in Microsoft Teams ²
• Microsoft Security Copilot | Microsoft Security ³

Source: Conversation with Bing, 8/15/2023
(1) Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/privacy/microsoft-365-copilot.
(2) The next wave of Copilot in Microsoft Teams. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/the-next-wave-of-copilot-in-microsoft-teams/ba-p/3872842.
(3) Microsoft Security Copilot | Microsoft Security. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/ai-machine-learning/microsoft-security-copilot.

Tips to think about when securing OneDrive for Business

To verify that OneDrive for Business is configured according to best practices regarding security and access, you may want to follow these steps:

• Manage the sharing and access settings for your organization. You can use the admin center to control how users can share and sync files, how much storage they have, and what devices they can use.
• Protect your account and devices from unauthorized access. You can create a strong password and add security info to your account. You can also turn on multi-factor authentication and device encryption.
• Avoid storing sensitive or personal information on OneDrive. You can use encryption or password protection for files that contain account credentials, personal data, or confidential documents.
• Use the built-in features that OneDrive offers to safeguard your data. You can restore previous versions of files, recover deleted files, detect and recover from ransomware attacks, and store files in a secure personal vault.

For more details, you can visit the following links:

• OneDrive admin center help
• How OneDrive safeguards your data in the cloud
• Protect your files in OneDrive
• OneDrive security and privacy

Of course, this is not enough. Don’t forget to analyze and plan

Before starting, you need to carry out a thorough analysis of all elements. Much can and should be done manually by someone who is deeply familiar with how things are and should be configured in Microsoft 365 and who can discover where you need to implement the necessary actions. In addition to analyzing manually, you can also use scripts to speed up the process, then of course this assumes that these scripts have been built by someone who has good knowledge of how these should be built, what they should check and how reports should be generated in a desired format.

Summary

This blog post was just the beginning of many blog posts to come about Microsoft 365 Copilot and the path we all have to walk to get there. Much is new, much is unknown and most of us are very curious to both hear, read and see more about the subject.

I would also like to finally highlight my partner and newfound good friend Bing Chat Enterprise, who contributed a lot of good help when I wrote this post. If you only know how to ask the right questions and formulate them in the right way, you save a lot of time by using Bing Chat Enterprise. If you don’t have the creativity right from the start, Bing Chat Enterprise can give you a very good start-up help that you can then quality-assure and continue to work on from.